


All Those Who Wander

by runsinthefamily



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Firefly flavoured, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2017-09-08
Packaged: 2018-12-24 12:56:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12013206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runsinthefamily/pseuds/runsinthefamily
Summary: From the kinkmeme:"Hawke (preferably male) has a sister. She's a powerful witch that was driven crazy by templar torture during her time in the Circle. Hawke shed blood and tears to get her out of there, broken and not herself.All insults or disdain towards her are met with righteous fury. Diplomatic! or Sarcastic! Hawke goes berserk if anyone so much as looks at her wrong.Come on, make my browncoat heart happy.[If there is a LI, Fenris would be swell. It would soo add to the drama - Imagine him commenting on Bethany and Hawke going into papa bear mode]"





	1. Chapter 1

The worst time is breakfast, when Bethany comes over to where he sits and puts her head on his right knee - always the right one, the left one is "all prickly, harsh like a sunburn's kiss" - and waits. Months of practice have not made this easier, nor fine tuned his control over the skills that Samson had reluctantly taught him.   
  
Hawke puts his hands on his sister's head and drains her mana.   
  
He hates the way she shivers and fists her hands in his pant leg, hates the tears that escape her squeezed shut eyelids, hates most of all the smile she gives him afterward.  
  
"Bitter and sweet," she murmurs this morning, slumped against him like a broken doll.  
  
He helps her to her feet, brushing off her dress, wiping her face. Her eyes wander left.   
  
"There's a whisper in Mother's room," she says and his heart clenches. "It's quiet but it can't hide its laughter. Roses would be so inappropriate, isn't that right?"  
  
"Shh about Mother for now, Beth," says Hawke.  
  
"I'm lost," she tells him and she's looking him right in the eyes, something so rare that it's become a shock, those brown eyes that used to be warm and hopeful and slightly sad. Now they are intense and wide. "I'm lost and no one is looking for me. Should have taken me into the dark," she says. "Should have made me a memory. Can't lose a memory, it's locked up and safe." She taps him in the center of his forehead.  
  
"I'm looking," he says. "Bethy, I'm looking. I'll find you, I promise."  
  
Her eyes are wandering away again, upwards. "Sometimes a thing gets lost, can't  _be_  found." He opens his mouth, but she puts a hand over it before he can speak. "Go walk your dog," she says and nods past his shoulder.  
  
Fenris stands awkwardly in the doorway, all slouch and twitch and glower. "Is she safe?" he asks.  
  
Hawke suppresses anger. A mad mage was a danger. This was the truth, the reality that had led him to pour all that gold into an ex-templar's hands. "I took her mana, if that's what you mean," he says coldly.  
  
Bethany seems entirely unaware of the conversation, has ambled away toward the library. Recently she's taken to rooting out all the copies of Ander's manifesto and "correcting" them.   
  
"We need to talk," says Fenris.

"The Templars are looking for the apostate who set fire to the Chanter's Board," says Fenris, stalking forward. "Is there anyone who's seen her?" he jerks his chin at the door to the library. "Anyone who would recognize her?"  
  
"Bethany was in - that  _place_  long before I bought back the estate," says Hawke. "You know that."  
  
"Surely your neighbors know that you have her here."  
  
"I don't go borrowing cups of sugar nearly so much as I used to," says Hawke. "I'm fairly sure they all wrote me off when you became a regular visitor."  
  
Fenris's lip curls and Hawke is reminded once again of how perfectly beautiful his scorn is. "It is not illegal to consort with elves," he says. "Sharing a bed with me will not win you a cell in the Gallows."  
  
"Oh, is that what we are doing? Forgive me, it's been a while."  
  
Fenris looks away, into the fireplace. "You are welcome to stay with me," he mutters.  
  
"I can't be away from her," says Hawke. "If she gets agitated, Bodahn can't always calm her."  
  
"So this is to be your life, then?" Fenris demands. "Nursemaid to an addled mage? Bound to her until you die?"  
  
"She is my  _sister_ ," Hawke spits out, even though he knows that Fenris does not, cannot understand.   
  
"There are places for ... Varric's brother seems happy enough in ..."  
  
"She is a mage, as you seem anxious to point out constantly. The only place that would take her is the place from which I spent a year and more money than I used to think existed to free her."  
  
Fenris's shoulders bow a little. "I did not come here to fight with you," he says.  
  
"Why did you come?" asks Hawke. "I've seen so little of you since Beth returned."  
  
"I - I miss you," says Fenris. The words are strained and rough.   
  
Hawke steps closer to him. "I've missed you too," he says. "It ... has not been easy."  
  
Fenris looks at Hawke, eyes burning beneath his white fringe, and reaches out to pull him into a kiss. Fenris kisses the same as ever, slightly rough, needy, drowningly passionate and Hawke has missed him, so much. They sway against one another, clutching, devouring.  
  
"Garrett, Garrett!" It is Bethany, her voice rising in a shriek.  
  
Hawke rips himself away from Fenris and runs to the library, nearly colliding with Bodahn, coming from the pantry. Bethany is crouched on top of the desk, hands clenched together over her head. On the floor is a pile of paper, burning briskly.  
  
Bodahn, bless his sturdy reliable soul, immediately stamps the fire out. Hawke goes up to Bethany and gently rubs her upper arms.   
  
"Bethy, shh, it's alright, look, it's out already."  
  
"There was a spark, the anger, you left a drop and it bloomed like lilies, like lilies. He's so angry and the paper remembers the touch of his fingers, it's like a bird after the bird is gone."  
  
"I left a drop?" asks Hawke. "Bethy, you're supposed to tell me if you feel any mana."  
  
"I'm sorry," she whispers. "A cup wants to hold tea, it's what it's made for."   
  
He hears the front door close and knows that Fenris has left. Weariness rolls over him like a wave. "Is there any left now?" he asks.  
  
She shakes her head.   
  
"Let's go see Anders today, shall we?" he offers. The clinic, horrible and dark and depressing as it was, often calmed her down.   
  
She brightens a little. "Shall I make potions?"  
  
"We'll pick up some elfroot and embrium on the way, alright?" Anders had been corresponding, through some intermediaries, with a spirit healer he'd known in Ferelden, asking about mental injuries and trauma. Maybe he'd gotten some news.  _Or maybe I just want to get out of this house_ , Hawke thought.

Bethany insists on gathering up the manifestos she's been scribbling on and taking them along. Hawke just hopes that Anders won't be too annoyed by it. He's been grim and irritable lately, although when it comes to Bethany he dregs up a hint of the old Anders, his kindness and gently sarcastic humor coming to the fore.   
  
When they'd first seen Bethany, chained to an iron chair, silent and shivering and thin as a rail, the lyrium instruments laid out so carefully beside her on that pristine table, Anders had gone entirely Justice. And a good thing, too, or they would never have made it out of there. Eighteen dead Templars and one Tranquil whose only crime had been to see their faces. Hawke could not bring himself to feel guilty.  
  
It was hard for Anders to be with Bethany, Hawke knew. The sight of her made Justice rage like a beast, Anders had told him. But Bethany loved the clinic, loved Anders, loved Justice, even, and none of them could bear to keep her from the few things that made her happy.  
  
The clinic is relatively quiet today, only a few patients waiting to see the healer. Anders glances up as they enter, winces and then smiles at Bethany, who runs across the floor to hug him.  
  
"Hello and hello," she says. "Here," she dumps the pile of paper into his arms. "Your metaphors are solid but you draw too much from Transfigurations. It's just a trick, you know. If you still dreamed, you could go and see for yourself. Can I make potions?"  
  
Ander blinks. "Anytime, Bethany."  
  
She beams, steps away to his work bench, and begins to unload the bag of herbs they brought with them.  
  
"Sorry about that," says Hawke, nodding at the paper. "It's kept her busy for the last little while."  
  
"Hmm?" Anders is paging through the stack. "Actually, some of this is pretty insightful."  
  
"Great. She can be your editor. Just don't credit her in the end notes."  
  
Anders sets the stack aside. "You look tired," he said.   
  
"Have you heard anything from your Ferelden friend?"  
  
"She's looking into it," says Anders. "Nothing useful so far. It would help if we knew what they actually did to Bethany in there. That wasn't a regular ..." his mouth twists and the faintest waver of oily black smoke rises from the knuckles of his right hand where it is fisted at his side. "I've never seen or heard of anything like those instruments, and I have seen a lot. I'm talking to my contacts in the Circle, but no one seems to know anything. Whatever was going on, it wasn't the usual abuse."  
  
Hawke glances over to where Bethany is slowly, methodically dicing elfroot. "She's different. I mean, more than just the crazy. Her mana pool is massive, and sometimes she says things that are just so ..."  
  
"Yes," says Anders. "Look, I've got patients. Leave her here if you like. I swear to you," and his eyes glinted blue, "she will come to no harm."  
  
"I shouldn't," says Hawke.  
  
"Go see Varric," says Anders. "Go see Aveline. Go be the Champion for a bit, it'll do you good and keep people from seeking you out at home." Anders looks troubled for a moment. "And when you get back, I'd like to talk to you. Privately. I've got a favor to ask."  
  
"Anything," says Hawke and means it.  
  
"Anything is the biggest word in the world," says Bethany from across the room, where she could not have heard their low, muttered conversation. "It's got a hole in it, you could fall in and never reach the bottom." She turns around and waves at Hawke. "Say hello to Merrill for me."  
  
Hawke sighs, claps Anders on the shoulder, and leaves.


	2. Chapter 2

Varric and Isabella and Merrill are playing Wicked Grace in Varric's rooms. Their reaction at his entrance is both gratifying and guilt-inducing.   
  
"Hawke!" Merrill wraps her arms around him and gives him a surprisingly strong hug. "You look tired," she says. "Here, sit down and I'll get you a cup of tea. Do they make tea here, Varric? I've never asked."  
  
"I doubt it, Daisy, but I've got a kettle and some leaves over on the sideboard." Varric pushes a chair out with one foot. "Take a load off, Hawke. It's good to see you."  
  
Isabella only smiles at him, but it's the rarely-seen, nearly-seduction-free, genuine article.  
  
He's seen them plenty in the last few months but it's different here, in the familiar pong of the Hanged Man, where so many times they've laughed and gotten drunk and planned crazy schemes. Here was where they'd toasted the success of the Deep Roads expedition, where he'd bitched endlessly about the Maker-damned Bone Pit, where they'd had Aveline's promotion party when she was installed as Guard Captain. He hasn't been here since before they broke Bethany out, he realizes.  
  
Merrill puts a cup of surprisingly appetizing tea in front of him and sits beside him. Isabella deals him in.   
  
"We're betting confessions," she says. "Varric sleeps with Bianca under the covers with him and Merrill never washes her feet."  
  
"Well, there's hardly any point, is there," says Merrill.   
  
Hawke grins. "I'm not here to play cards," he says, but picks up the hand anyway.  
  
"Something I can do for you?" asks Varric.  
  
"Fenris came by, said something about the Templars looking for apostates in Hightown," says Hawke. "I just wanted to be sure that you hadn't heard anything about ... you know."  
  
Varric shakes his head. "They bought our ruse, so far as I know," he says. "You sold it pretty well at the inquiry. As far as Meredith is concerned, Bethany is in Tevinter. If I hear anything, I'll let you know." He leans forward. "It's good that you're out, though. You need to start showing your face again, Hawke, or people will begin to talk."  
  
Hawke folds his hand and drops the cards on the table. "I'm starting to think we should just leave Kirkwall," he says.  
  
"What?" Merrill squeaks.  
  
Isabella nods. "You know you've got my ship, if you need it," she says. "I'm making a run to Amaranthine in a week."  
  
"I was thinking Tevinter," says Hawke. "Or perhaps Riviani. Somewhere mages aren't so caged, where they might know more about how to help Beth."  
  
"I'm thinking," says Varric, "that what we really need is another look in that room."  
  
There is a brief, shocked, silence.

"Are you taking over from Hawke in the 'insane ideas' department?" asks Isabella. "It took us six months to plan our first little excursion in there, not to mention a truly unspeakable amount of Hawke's money."  
  
"They won't have simply set up shop again," says Hawke. "We tore that place down, Varric."  
  
"Lyrium instruments? A year and a half spent doing whatever they were doing to Sunshine? Oh, they've set up shop," says Varric. "They had too much invested to quit just because one of their pets wriggled out of the cage." His voice has gone just a bit ugly with rage. "We just need to find out where they moved to."  
  
"We still don't know exactly who 'they' are," says Merrill. "Or what they wanted to achieve."  
  
"All this conspiracy bullshit makes my head hurt," says Isabella. "Why don't you get better brains than mine to the table to talk about this? Shall we say, tonight? At Hawke's? I'll bring the brandy, you can bring your layouts and Templar patrols and whatever else you'll need to break into the Gallows  _again_  and search Meredith's files  _again_." She rises, languid and graceful, and drops a kiss on Hawke's cheek. "Me and my knives will just wait for you to point us in the right direction." She sashays out.  
  
"Every now and then, you remember she's a captain," says Varric. He slaps the table with both hands. "Well, I suppose I've got work to do."  
  
"I should get back to Bethany," says Hawke, though it's been less than an hour and she wouldn't even had time to complete the simplest of elfroot potions.  
  
"Why don't you finish your tea," says Merrill.   
  
"Welcome to stay, Hawke," says Varric. "I'll see you later." He takes up Bianca, seats her lovingly in her holster on his back, and leaves.  
  
"You said you spoke to Fenris today?" Merrill has poured herself a cup and wraps her hands around it.   
  
Hawke slumps in his chair. "He came by. Briefly."  
  
"It must be hard," says Merrill. "He doesn't have any - frame of reference. And it took you two so long to work everything out."  
  
"He thinks I should put her away." Hawke sips his tea. Cinnamon and rosehips and a hint of spindleweed.  
  
"He doesn't," says Merrill, horrified.  
  
"Said so," Hawke says. "I thought I understood him, but I just ... I kissed him anyway. After he'd said it."  
  
"Hawke," says Merrill, an ocean of empathy and concern in her tone.  
  
"I should go," says Hawke and pushes away from the table. "I don't want to leave Bethany for too long, it isn't fair to Anders."  
  
"I'll see you tonight, then," says Merrill. She reaches out and captures his hand. "You're not alone," she tells him, and kisses his knuckles with sweet, platonic fervor. "Remember that for me, will you?"

"Oh, sirrah, how lovely," says Bodahn. "Company for dinner. I'll get a nice roast, shall I, and some new potatoes. Sandal, how would you like to carry the basket?"  
  
"Yes!" says Sandal. "And the doggie."  
  
"Yes, take Duchess with you," says Hawke. "I haven't been very attentive, have I girl?" Mabaris, he knows from personal experience, are masters of the reproachful-yet-devoted stare, but Duchess only licks his hand gently and trails after the dwarves.  
  
Hawke disdains the cellar shortcut in favor of a leisurely stroll through the city. The sun is out, the air from the ocean is cutting the usual stink to a remarkable degree, and he has things on his mind. Most of which he doesn't really want to think about - the fact that soon he's going to have to drain Bethany twice a day, Bodahn's declaration that he wants to take Sandal to Orlais, Fenris - but if he doesn't deal with things, they don't, generally, get dealt with.  
  
He stops by the flower shop where Orana is settling in as assistant, buys a nosegay, and slips her a few extra silver. He doesn't blame her for leaving, not after the first disastrous days of Bethany's return, when Anders and Merrill and he had barely managed to keep his sister from burning the house down everytime she woke screaming from nightmares.  
  
Bethany and Anders are sitting on one of the rickety cots, legs folded under them, eyes closed, facing one another. Their breathing is slow, deep, synchronized.  
  
Hawke pauses in the doorway, lips parted. This is the calmest he has seen her yet, more peaceful even than when she sleeps. He's spellbound, hardly daring to breathe, lest he interrupt. Her face is relaxed but for a small smile.  
  
The smile twitches and then spreads. "Hello, Garrett," she says without opening her eyes.  
  
Anders stirs, looks over his shoulder. "Hawke," he says and unfolds from the cot. "We were meditating. An apprentice exercise," he says. "It occurred to me today that it might help."  
  
"Apostates," says Bethany. "Tragically uneducated. Father didn't always show us everything." She opens her eyes. "Your hand is blooming," she informs Hawke.  
  
"They're for you," he says.  
  
"You should give them to the dog," she says. "He's got a sore paw."  
  
"I didn't get them for Fenris," says Hawke and puts them into her hands.   
  
She smiles again and holds them up to her face.   
  
"How was the meditation?" he asks her.  
  
"The inside of my head is bigger than..." she trails off.  "What's a great big thing?"  
  
"Our house?" offers Hawke.  
  
"Sundermount?" says Anders.  
  
"The Chantry," she says, firmly. "Bigger than the Chantry. As it is right now. Things often change size. They gain dimension. Or they come apart, all bits and pebbles."  
  
Anders shoots her a startled look.  
  
"Thanks for keeping her," Hawke tells Anders. "She's always happier when she's been here."  
  
"Worrying, isn't it?" Anders says wryly. "It's no trouble, Hawke, really. If you wanted to do it again, let me know. Lord knows I can do with the potions."  
  
"What was that favor you wanted to ask me about?"

"Right." Anders goes outside, extinguishes the lamp, and latches the doors shut. "Some of the things that I've been reading seem to indicate that it might be possible to separate Justice and I."  
  
"What, really? That's wonderful, Anders."  
  
"There's a potion, a Tevinter recipe. But I need some outlandish ingredients. A powder the Tevinters call sela petrae and a small amount of drakestone."  
  
"That's it, a potion? There's no ritual to go along with it?"  
  
"No, no ritual. Just mix the ingredients up and - "  
  
"Boom," Bethany says, interrupting him.  
  
Anders turns toward her, very nearly turns  _on_  her. "What?" he demands. His voice has that fade-echo that Hawke has become intimately familiar with.  
  
Bethany viciously rips the heads off her flowers and flings them in the air. Petals and stems and bits of leaf rain down. She laughs, uncaring of the blue light that is starting to spill from Anders’ eyes.  
  
"Anders," says Hawke, alarmed.   
  
Anders turns away, hands over his face. "Sorry," he mutters. "I'm sorry. It's becoming harder to ... you see why I need to do this."  
  
"Yes, of course. I'll help you," says Hawke. "I'm sure that Merrill and Varric could come over and watch Bethany while we get this ... sela stuff. Drakestone's not a problem, there's some at the Bone Pit, the miners used to complain about having to haul it out to get at the valuable ore."  
  
Anders takes a deep breath and straightens. "Thank you, Hawke. I knew you'd stand with me in this, even if ..."  
  
"What?"   
  
Anders looks at Bethany again, who is watching him solemnly. "Nothing."  
  
"Come by the house tonight," says Hawke. "Varric wants to have a chat about ... things." He cuts his eyes toward Bethany.  
  
"Yes, alright," says Anders. "Practice your meditation, Bethany," he tells her.  
  
"Your plans are inside out," she says, before her brow creases and she looks down at the floor. "All the blue is gone," she says. "I ruined it."  
  
"I'll get you more," says Hawke and puts an arm around her.

She's morose for the rest of the day, only sighing when he presents her with an armload of flowers from the back garden, spending several hours leaning against the door of their mother's old room, eyes closed and lips parted.  
  
"Bethy?" he asks when he comes up to get dressed for dinner and finds her still there, wriggling her fingers under the door. He squats, touches her hair. "Do you want to go in?"   
  
She shakes her head. "The whisper runs away if I breathe it," she says.   
  
"Dinner is soon," he says. "Do you want to come down and say hello when people arrive?"  
  
She opens her eyes. "People?"  
  
"I told you, remember? Varric and Anders and the rest, they're coming tonight."  
  
"Shall I pet the dog?" she asks, with an undercurrent of malicious amusement. "Or will he snap at me?"  
  
"Fenris will behave," says Hawke. "If you do."  
  
"He was so much nicer," she sighs. "Before the moon ate him. Little bits inside me, they sing when he's near."  
  
Hawke is so taken aback by this that he can only stare.  
  
"Not like that," she tells him, exasperated. "Ew."  
  
"Change your dress," he tells her and pulls her to her feet. "This one has elfroot all down the front."  
  
She looks down at the stains. "One day they will not have been. Wait, no. That's incorrect. What day is it? Where is the sun? Are the dragons still here?"  
  
She's getting agitated and Hawke does an instinctive probe, white light flaring around their joined hands. She's pulsing with mana, he realizes, his heart sinking.   
  
"No, don't," she says, tugging at her hands, trying to pull away.   
  
"I won't," he says. "Bethy, shhhh, I promised, remember? Not unless you ask. Can you ask me, please?"  
  
She starts to cry. "I'm all leaky like a sieve, I never wanted, I didn't, I ... they never let me have any unless they made me take it all and now there are cracks  _everywhere_."  
  
He lets go her hands and pulls her into his arms, hugging her fiercely. "I'll hold you together, Bethy. If you let me."  
  
"Hold me together," she repeats.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"It's now, isn't it? Is this now?"  
  
"This is now," he agrees. It's the one question she asks that he knows how to answer. "You're here with me, and it's now."  
  
She takes a shaky breath. "Please take my mana, Garrett," she says quietly, and he does.


	3. Chapter 3

Aveline arrives first, surprisingly elegant in well-cut linen. She hands Hawke a bottle of wine and then hugs him. "You look tired," she says, direct as always.

"I'm hearing that a lot lately," he says, smiling.

"Well, then, maybe you should get more sleep," she says, folding her arms.

"Where's Donnic?"

She gives him what can only be described as a Look. "Don't try to pretend you aren't going to plan a criminal escapade tonight," she says. "It's bad enough you make me a party to your shenanigans, leave my husband out of it."

Hawke lets the smile fall. "Varric thinks we need to make a raid. To find out more about Bethany's condition."

Aveline puts a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry I wasn't able to do more," she says. "Official channels are pretty narrow between the guard and the Chantry."

"You did plenty," he assures her. "And I appreciate it."

"Always," says Aveline.

Bethany comes down the stairs, dress changed, hair brushed. She's smiling. She could be any girl, coming down to greet guests, to spend time with family and friends, eat dinner, do normal, any girl things. "Aveline," she says. 

"Hello, Bethany," says Aveline. "You look well."

"It's an architect's lie but we all like pretty things," says Bethany but she sounds pleased. 

Varric and Merrill arrive together and then Anders emerges from the cellars in a clean shirt. Isabella comes in as Bodahn announces dinner, Fenris in tow. 

The others follow Bodahn to the dining room, leaving Hawke and Fenris alone for a moment.

"I came to say -" says Fenris, just as Hawke blurts out "I think -" They both stop short. 

Fenris looks down, away. "Varric explained the purpose of this meeting. I am with you."

Hawke scrubs a hand through his hair. "Thank you."

"I left you once," says Fenris. "I will not do it again."

Hawke closes his eyes and nods. 

Fenris puts his hands to Hawke's cheeks and draws him down for a kiss, gentle and kind and almost chaste.

When they seat themselves with the others, Bethany kicks Hawke lightly under the table, grinning. "Woof," she mouths at him.

He kicks her back, his heart light.

The meal is wonderful, filled with chatter and jokes and almost the same sense of camaraderie that they'd had before. Before the Qunari, before his mother's death, before Bethany's broken return. 

There is an empty space, of course, where Sebastian once would have been. Hawke wonders how his quest to reclaim his throne proceeds. What they had seen in the bowels of the Gallows had strained the prince's faith beyond the breaking point. He'd come out harder, colder. Hawke sometimes wondered if peace hadn't been the better path, even if built on a lie. 

A piece of bread crust bounces off his forehead and he blinks down the table at Isabella, who winks. "Still here with us, sweet thing?"

Bethany leans over and looks in his eyes. "It's now," she tells him seriously. "You're here and it's now."

"Truer words were never spoken, Sunshine," says Varric. "And now is a good time to get down to business."

Bodahn clears the table with alacrity and shepherds Sandal off to bed, leaving them with Isabella's brandy and an impossible task to plan.

"Should your sister not also retire?" asks Fenris.

"Rude," Merrill chides him. 

"It will not assist us if she becomes ... distraught," says Fenris evenly.

"Maybe she has something to add," says Isabella. "After all, she's the one with the most extensive knowledge of what happened to her. She was there!"

"Riviani," says Varric, "don't push."

"Why not?" asks Isabella. 

"She's fragile," says Anders.

Bethany is following the conversation, eyes darting back and forth. Hawke puts a hand on her arm but she shrugs it off.

"So, if she doesn't want to answer, she doesn't have to," says Isabella. "But do her the courtesy of asking." She turns. "Bethany. Can you tell anything about what they did to you?"

Hawke clenches his fists. He'd never asked, never thought to. Hadn't wanted to make her talk about it, and, if he was to be honest, couldn't bear the thought of knowing. Whenever he remembers the iron chair, and her eyes, empty as a Tranquil's, he just wants to kill someone.

"Moonbeams. In my bones. Every one a doorway," says Bethany.

"Oh, yes, very helpful," says Fenris.

"Shut up, Fenris," says Hawke, ignoring the flash of anger and hurt in Fenris's face. "You talked about the moon before, Bethy," says Hawke. "What do you mean?"

"Ask him," says Bethany, pointing at Anders. "It sings, doesn't it?" she asks Anders. "Like a wire through your guts. All you want is to touch him."

Anders goes pale and then red. "She's talking about lyrium," he says, very carefully not looking at Fenris. "Justice always used to say that it sang to him."

Fenris snarls a little.

"Yes!" Bethany beams at Anders. "He does! Did! Wait, no, that's back in the when before ..." She lets out a small, frustrated sound. 

"It's now, Bethy," says Hawke, taking her hand.

"But it isn't," she says. "Everyone is looking forward, it's getting very loud."

Anders is looking from Fenris to Bethany, horrified speculation dawning on his face. He gets up, kneels beside Bethany's chair. "Can I examine you?" he asks.

"Let him do it," she says. 

"That's not safe," he says.

Bethany slaps him, hard.

Blue light bursts out of Anders, welling from the sudden fissures in his skin. Fenris knocks over his chair standing up, Aveline lets out a shout, Varric swears. Hawke grabs Bethany and yanks her away, trying to put his body in between his sister and the angry spirit.

"Stop." It is Justice, pushing Anders's body to its feet. "I will not harm her."   
Bethany takes Hawke's hand very gently and removes it from her arm. He lets her go, cautiously, because the fastest way to send her into a frenzy is to hold her against her will.

"You see it," she says to Justice.

"I see it," he says, gravely. "There is lyrium inside you."

Fenris makes some kind of sound, and the Hawke of a year ago would have turned to his lover to see what could make Fenris sound like that, so vulnerable. The Hawke of now, of Bethany's desperately needed now, does not, though it hurts him.

"Lyrium?" asks Isabella. "How?"

"A thousand needles," says Bethany, her gaze on Justice. "They scrape like claws. Filled in the holes afterward, prick prick prick, but you can't close it all the way," she tells the spirit. 

"Can someone translate for the rest of us?" asks Varric. 

"She's partly in the Fade," says Justice. "I do not understand how."

"She's right there," says Aveline. "She's awake, how can she be in the Fade? Even when that Keeper sent us there, our bodies stayed here, sleeping."

"There are some disciplines, very difficult, that shift a mage partly into the Fade, for protection in battle," says Merrill. "I heard that the Hero of Ferelden can do it."

"This is not that," says Justice. "This is something new. And it is not right. She did not consent. We will find those responsible and redress the balance. Your suffering," he says to Bethany, "will not go unanswered!" The blue furnace of his gaze intensifies, his fists clench, and wavering threads of black smoke begin to rise from his skin.

"Oh, shit," says Isabella.

Hawke tugs on Bethany's arm, trying to get her to step away. Everyone is hesitating, hands twitching toward weapons. Another blue glow blazes up, and Fenris steps in front of Hawke, tattoos alight, and draws his sword with a metallic scrape. Hawke summons the will for a smite, though he knows that Justice will likely kill him for it.

"This doesn't happen now," says Bethany to Hawke, even as Justice lifts his hands, ice forming in thickening bands around his fingers.

Aveline steps up behind him and coshes him briskly over the head. 

Like blowing out a candle, the light is gone, the cracks vanished. It is only Anders, lying in a heap on the floor. 

"Oh, dear," says Merrill.


	4. Chapter 4

"If the lyrium is driving her batty, then why not take it out?" asks Isabella.  
  
They have adjourned to the library, where Merrill conjures some ice for Anders to put against the knot on the back of his head. Bethany sits with her hands in her lap, as far away from Anders as Hawke can position her. Fenris sit on the arm of Hawke's chair, tense as a spring.  
  
"What, just hack her open and look for shiny needles?" Varric pokes the fire.   
  
"No," says Isabella with exaggerated patience. "Fenris can do his fisting thing, doesn't even have to break the skin."  
  
Ander raises his head. "There are so many things wrong with that, I can't even begin to point them out."  
  
"The abomination is right," says Fenris. "I could crush her heart if you wanted - but fine manipulation is beyond my skills."  
  
"Can we not talk about fisting and heart crushing in conjunction with my sister, please?" says Hawke. "Fenris, I hate to ask, but is there anything about this that's ... familiar?"  
  
Fenris looks at Bethany, who flicks her eyes up at him for a second and then goes back to studying her hands. "No," he says. "But then, I do not remember the ritual that gave me these." He holds out one hand and clenches it, making the lyrium beneath his skin shift and stretch. "Only the pain. To have had lyrium set deeper .... " He shakes his head. "I am not surprised that she has lost her wits."  
  
"By the Creators, what a thing to do to someone," says Merrill.   
  
Aveline stirs, looks out the window at the moon. "I'm sorry, Hawke, but I have a night patrol coming in soon and I need to take their report." She drops a hand on her shoulder on her way past. "Let me know what I can do, even if it's just to help you bash some skulls."  
  
Hawke clasps her fingers briefly.  
  
Anders drops the towel of ice soggily to the floor and wincing, calls up a greenish flicker of magic. "Ow," he comments. "Well. A night's sleep and I should be good as new."  
  
"I'm not apologizing," says Aveline.   
  
"I'm not asking you to," Anders replies. "It was well-timed. Thank you."  
  
She nods, and leaves.  
  
Varric stands. "I'll be toddling off as well, I think. Thanks for having us, Hawke. You throw an entertaining party - dinner and a show." He pauses to lift one of Bethany's hands and kiss it extravagantly, winning a smile. "Sunshine. I'll be in touch, Hawke. Give me a week or so."  
  
Merrill trails after him, pressing kisses on Hawke and Bethany's cheeks.   
  
Isabella takes Anders by the hand. "Up you get, Sparklefingers," she says. "You're coming with me."  
  
"Maker's breath, woman," Anders complains. "How many times do I need to -"  
  
"Don't worry, I'm not going to tie you to my bed and ravish you," she says. "You're all done in, I'm not having you staggering about Darktown in this state."  
  
"It's ten steps from the cellar door to my clinic," he protests.  
  
"Where you will no doubt spend the whole night scribbling at that ridiculous manifest."  
  
"Manifesto!"  
  
"Good night, Hawke, Bethany," says Isabella, and hauls Anders out.  
  
Fenris stands, pauses uncertainly.  
  
Bodahn pokes his head in the door. "Shall I lock up, serrah?" he asks, glancing meaningfully at Fenris, who is watching Hawke.   
  
Hawke meets those green, green eyes. "Will you stay?" he asks, because he knows Fenris needs him to. He gets a nod, the fractional softening of those beautiful lips.  
  
"Bethy - " he begins, but she's already gone.  
  
"I'll see that the young mistress gets safely to bed," says Bodahn.   
  
Hawke smiles gratefully.   
  
Then they are alone, he and his lover, once again struggling to close the distance between them.

"Hawke, I ..."  
  
"Can we not speak?" Hawke asks. He does not want to hear the apology, or worse, the lecture. "All I want to do right now is kiss you."  
  
Fenris's eyes lid slightly. His tells are miniscule but Hawke is a master of reading them by now. Fenris does not say a words as Hawke walks to him, puts his hands along the exquisite line of that elvhen jaw, and tilts his face up for a kiss.  
  
Maker, his skin, soft as silk, warm and giving beneath Hawke's fingers. His lips, parting easily, eagerly. His hands, slender and agile, dancing up Hawke's spine and down again, cupping his buttocks, bringing his hips forward, where his half-hard cock meets Fenris's through their clothing.  
  
Hawke breaks the kiss with a needy groan. "Upstairs," he says. "Please."  
  
Fenris backs away, eyes wide, pupils dilated with desire. He strips his gauntlets as he goes, dropping them carelessly to the rug. His breastplate clangs to the tiles of the foyer, his spaulders and belt fall on the stairs, and he strips his leather vest off at the very door of Hawke's bedroom. Hawke can only follow, watching the unfaltering grace of his movements, even as he backs up the stairs.   
  
At the door he waits, hands easy at his sides. There is a deliberate quality to his stance, to the unwavering stare. He is making a show, Hawke realizes, waiting for orders. He is giving himself over. The trust is staggering.  
  
Hawke opens the door, and Fenris steps inside.  
  
"The rest," says Hawke, closing the door behind them and leaning on it.  
  
Fenris pulls off his sleeveless shirt, skins the leggings down and kicks them aside. He's almost completely erect. His eyes burn.  
  
Hawke pulls his own clothing off, tossing the silk to the side carelessly, and then drops to his knees in front of Fenris. There is a startled almost-exclamation from above which turns into a wordless cry as he laves his tongue up the underside of Fenris's cock, chasing the line of lyrium that disfigures and glorifies it. When Hawke drops his mouth down, taking the whole of it past his lips, Fenris fists both hands into his hair and moans.  
  
He manages five strokes, urging Fenris's hips forward with an ungentle grip on his buttocks, before Fenris pushes him away. Slim hands clamp with unnatural strength on his biceps, and the tattoos flare as Fenris tosses him on the bed. As always, the casual display of power makes Hawke dry-mouthed with want as much as the sight of him, every beautiful swirl of lyrium alight and burning, crawling onto the bed and over him.  
  
"Do you want me above you?" asks Fenris, his voice husky. "Or below?"  
  
"I just ... ah!" Hawke breaks off as Fenris licks his neck from collarbone to earlobe. "I just want you," he manages.  
  
"Then you shall have me."  
  
A minute's fumbling at the bedside table produces the jar of salve and they spend a while kissing as Hawke works slick fingers into Fenris, one by one. At three, Fenris hisses and drops his head to Hawke's chest. Hawke presses harder, deeper, and Fenris makes a needy, desperate sound that runs straight to Hawke's erection.   
  
Fenris pushes himself up on Hawke's chest and moves back. Hawke sets his hands beneath Fenris's thighs. When Fenris guides himself down, agonizingly slow, Hawke's breath stutters. The look on his face, tense and wanting and almost drugged with pleasure makes Hawke wish that he could make this moment last forever, keep them frozen here, on the cusp of fulfillment, nothing but their bodies slowly coming together, sweat and need and musk ...  
  
Fenris comes down the last inch and seats himself against Hawke's groin and Hawke loses thought.

It's slow, and tender, and all the things that no one would ever guess lay beneath Fenris's prickly exterior. Fenris rises and falls, the muscles in his chest and belly clenching and releasing rhythmically. Sweat trembles on his skin.   
  
"So beautiful," Hawke says and wraps one hand around Fenris's cock. His palm and fingers are still slippery with salve and Fenris shudders as they slide along him. "Maker, you're beautiful," Hawke says again.   
  
"Hawke," Fenris says. Just his name. "Hawke."  
  
Hawke begins to lift his hips into the rhythm of Fenris's movement, meeting him on the downstroke, matching it with his hand, tightening his grip. Fenris speeds up, and Hawke follows, until they are rutting frantically, panting and sweating and clutching. Fenris comes first, hot and wet across Hawke's torso, and then can only hold on as Hawke thrusts upwards once, twice ...  
  
... and spills, at last, gloriously, into the tight hot clench of Fenris's ass.  
  
They lay entangled for a while afterward, letting their breath slow, the sweat evaporate. The room smells of fucking and it makes Hawke smile. Fenris smells of come and lyrium. Hawke remembers when he didn't like that smell, the pungent bite of it, the way it stung his nostrils just a little. Now it makes him half-hard, which can be awkward if Merrill or Anders has to swig a potion in the middle of battle.  
  
Fenris stirs, lifts himself his elbows. "Can we talk now?" he asks.  
  
"There goes my afterglow," says Hawke without rancor.  
  
"I think that I should live here," says Fenris.  
  
Hawke blinks at him. "I'm sorry, did you just say you wanted to move in?"  
  
"You have asked me before," says Fenris.  
  
"And you've always said no. Sometimes even before I was finished asking," says Hawke. He sits up, puts his back against the headboard. "Of course I want you here, Fenris," he adds quickly. "But ... what made you change your mind?"  
  
Fenris rolls over and sits up, crossing his legs easily, uncaring of his nudity. It makes Hawke's heart glad. Fenris used to vacillate between flaunting his tattoos in public and trying to hide them from view in private.   
  
"You need help," he says. "And you need protection."  
  
Hawke raises an eyebrow at the last.  
  
"You can protect yourself," says Fenris. "But will you? If the Templars break down your door, can you keep yourself safe as well as Bethany?"   
  
Hawke smiles. "Casting yourself as my guardian, hmm? I never really saw myself as the blushing maiden, but I'm flexible."  
  
Fenris gives Hawke one of his rare smirks. "Indeed. You will let me stay, then?"  
  
"You're actually worried about me," says Hawke.   
  
"Someone must take up the job," says Fenris. "Someone who can think clearly about the situation."  
  
Hawke's smile slips away and his stomach knots, just a little. "Fenris. Tell me you don't mean Bethany."

Fenris only looks at him, his brows drawn together in worry and frustration.  
  
"My sister," says Hawke, carefully, "is not a  _situation_."  
  
"She is not in control of herself," says Fenris.  
  
"She knows that," says Hawke. "She gives up her mana, every day, even though she doesn't want to, even though it hurts her. Because she knows! What more do you want from her?"  
  
"Nothing," says Fenris, still calm, though a kind of anguish has taken up residence on his face. "Bethany is, as ever, the strongest mage I have ever known."  
  
"I can't have you here if you're going to set yourself up as, as her  _guard_ ," Hawke spits the word out.   
  
"Not hers," says Fenris. "Yours."  
  
"Against her!"  
  
"Against anything."  
  
"You are splitting hairs."  
  
"I would never," Fenris stops, swallows. "I would never presume to step between you, to make you choose," he says, lower. "I know my place in ... in your life. But neither can I be with you and turn a blind eye to the danger that you are in. Whether that is Templars or abominations or blood mages or your sister."  
  
Hawke runs his hands through his hair and fists them at the back of his skull, wondering if the Maker had crafted Fenris for the specific purpose of driving him mad.  
  
"I love you," says Fenris. He sounds broken. "I cannot help but wish to keep you safe."  
  
"I love you too," says Hawke. "But if you lay a finger on Bethany I will kill you."  
  
"Your terms are fair," says Fenris.  
  
Hawke looks at him incredulously. "Terms?"  
  
"Dictates?" Fenris tries. "Rules of the house? For me to live here?"  
  
Hawke puts his hands over his face. "Of all the people in my life I sometimes think that Bethany is the sanest."  
  
"I -" Fenris begins, but Hawke forestalls him by dousing the lamp.   
  
"Let's just go to sleep," he says. "Tomorrow you can go get your things. By which I mean all your spare swords and Danarius's remaining wine cellar. Because I think that I am going to need a drink."  
  
Fenris lays down, stiffly. Hawke sighs, scoots over, and spoons him, drawing the fluff of his silky white hair under Hawke's chin. Fenris relaxes gradually and Hawke goes to sleep with his nose full of the smell of lyrium.  
  
He wakes, deep in the night, thirsty. He steps out into the hallway and nearly trips over Bethany, sitting on the floor and leaning against the wall next to his door. She looks up at him, wide awake. In the silver light of the moon shining through the hall windows, he sees the tracks of tears on her face.  
  
"Bethy?" he whispers and kneels down by her. "What are you doing up? Nightmare?"  
  
She shakes her head.   
  
"How long have you been here?" He's suddenly mortified. He and Fenris had not been exactly quiet in the throes of passion ...  
  
"The dog barks," says Bethany. "You should listen."  
  
"Maker," says Hawke. "Bethany, Fenris is, he's just ..."  
  
"He's afraid," says Bethany. "And he should be." She holds out her hands, and Hawke grips them, knowing what he's going to find. "Take it," she says.   
  
Hawke wraps her in his arms after the mana drain, and rocks her gently. She's crying again and it pulls his soul into bits. "How, Bethy?"  
  
"I'm poorly made," she says. "They put me together wrong and now all the gears just lock together. The water pours and pours and wears bits away."  
  
The house is dark and his mother is dead and all he can do is sit on the floor and hold what's left of his family and hope that for once, for  _once_ , he will find a way to make things right.


	5. Chapter 5

It's a month before Isabella and Varric and Hawke break into the Gallows. A month of draining Bethany twice a day and then three times, the strain of which leaves her pale and shaking and easily distressed. She has nightmares more often. When he goes with Anders to the sewers for the sela petrae he returns to find her digging frantically through the cellars, babbling about their mother and pruning and blood and he nearly slaps her to make her shut up.   
  
It is Fenris who keeps him together, silent and stoic in the daytime, a hedonistic satyr at night. Fenris fucks like a desire demon trying to make Hawke forget the rest of the world exists. It is a tireless, constant, continual gift at a level of selflessness that makes Hawke both grateful and horrendously guilty. Because he knows he cannot give anything like as deep in return.  
  
At last Varric comes through, with the guard schedules and new security protocols at the Gallows. It is Cullen who provides them, a Cullen who looks twenty years older than when Hawke first met him. He meets them in the Hanged Man, wearing grubby wool and a hood.   
  
"Thank you," says Hawke.  
  
"Please don't," says Cullen. His skin is grey and sagging. "You have perhaps three days before they discover what I've done. Be swift."  
  
"And what happens to you?" asks Hawke.  
  
The man shrugs. "Aeonar. The noose. It no longer matters."  
  
"Listen," says Varric. "I could pull a few strings, get you on a ship somewhere ..."  
  
"Wherever I run to, my sins will be there waiting," says Cullen. "I no longer know what is right. Only that I could not -" he cuts himself off. "I was there when they took her away," he says to Hawke. "I knew that they were not Templars, not official. Meredith told me to mind my duties, and I did. But I knew." He shakes his head, a slow self-condemnation.  
  
Hawke clenches his hands into fists with the effort of control.   
  
"I must get back," says Cullen. "Three days."  
  
"Got it," says Varric.  
  
Hawke manages a nod.  
  
It is raining the night they assemble at the docks. Isabella waits in a small boat, uncharacteristically dressed in head to toe black. Even her lip ring is gone, and her hair is tied back tightly. Hawke almost doesn't recognize her. Varric is less dramatically garbed, but has traded in his red coat for a dark brown one, buttoned up to the collar. Hawke is in unremarkable and utilitarian grey leathers.  
  
"Don't we just look like the cunningest trio of sneaks," says Isabella archly.   
  
"Where's your tits, Riviani?" asks Varric as he climbs aboard.  
  
"Oh, they're in here somewhere. We can have a hunt for them later if you like."  
  
Hawke grins at the pair of them. "If you could cross wits and row at the same time, it would be much appreciated."  
  
"We're in a boat. That makes me in charge," says Isabella, handing out the oars.   
  
"Boats," mutter Varris. "Not natural. I was hoping we'd be using the tunnels again, but noooo, has to be a damn boat."  
  
They muzzle themselves as they push out into the water and start the crossing. The moon is a sliver in the sky, and the only guide they have are the lights of the Gallows, tiny and insignificant in the massive bulk of the building. Isabella steers them away from the jetty, further left and along the rocky base of the island.   
  
"There," she says. A rope hangs down from a grate. They moor the boat and clamber out. The rock is slippery and stinks of rotten food and other waste.

"Lovely," Varric mutters. "One way or the other, we always seem to end up in a sewer."  
  
The grate is loose, and Hawke carefully sets it in the boat. "Ladies first," he says.  
  
"So gracious," ssys Isabelle, and slithers in.   
  
The chute angles steeply up after a few feet, and they spend an uncomfortable, painstaking time, leaning heavily on Isabella's agility as she chimneys up ahead to set crampons and rope. There is almost an accident with the acid when she burns through the grate at the other end, but Hawke and Varric flatten themselves against the wall and the smoking drops fall down to sizzle on the stone below.  
  
Isabella grimaces an apology, and lifts the grate gingerly up. They emerge into a scullery, sneak along a short passage to the kitchen, and Hawke drops a rag soaked in one of Tomwise's special compounds over the sleeping drudge's face, to ensure the woman remains asleep.   
  
Up the stairs at the end of the hall and then out a window again, back into the rain, to climb sixty feet of sheer wall and haul themselves over the crenelations and look down into the front courtyard of the Gallows. Directly below them is Meredith's office. Six Templars are on guard along the walkway and at the gate.   
  
Isabella puts her lips to Hawke's ear. "Cullen said there would be three," she whispers. "This isn't good."  
  
Beyond her, Varric lifts an eyebrow. Hawke chews his lip. This is their shot. If they give up now, who knows how long it will be before they can get in again? If they can get in at all? He does desperate math. He can kill at least two of them before they can get a shout off, he's sure, but Isabella is not as quick as he is, and Varric is not even a little bit subtle. It's not even possible to kill a Templar quietly, with all that Maker damned plate they wear.  
  
He grinds his teeth and motions Varric and Isabella down. They are going to have to wait.

Suddenly Isabella tugs his sleeve and jerks her head off to the side. He follows her line of sight and sees the sudden light spilling up from the massive grate covering the hallway where Meredith and Orsino have their offices. He ghosts over and looks over the edge of the stone coping the grate is set in.   
  
It is easily a hundred feet from the grate to the floor below. Meredith's door is open and she emerges as he watches. Behind her is another figure, this one clad all in black. It is difficult to see, with the poor lighting, the foreshortening and the distance, but there is some kind of silver sigil worked into the front of the man's tunic.  
  
"... my responsibilities ... work already ... you must understand ..." Meredith's voice is a faint, echo-y jumble, difficult to comprehend. The two of them are walking toward the courtyard and Hawke shadows them above.  
  
Her companion's voice is deeper, less strained by stress and tension. It's beautiful, actually, nearly as beautiful as Fenris's. "My dear Knight-Commander, your diligence and dedication are an inspiration. But you are not required to deal with these matters. Tend to the mages under your care, and allow me to tend to my work."  
  
"... lyrium ... surely you must ... "  
  
"You were permitted to keep a fragment, with which you must content yourself." The figure in black puts a hand on Meredith's breastplate. "Don't fret. The work we do is the Maker's will. Put your trust in that."  
  
Meredith's voice rises, clear and sharp. "My trust? You let the Hawke girl escape."  
  
Hawke's breath hisses out between his teeth.   
  
"It will not happen again," says the man in black, his rich voice cold. "Do not question me further."   
  
Meredith says nothing.  
  
"Good evening, then," says the man, offers her a tight, tiny bow, and walks off.   
  
Meredith watches him go, hands clenched into fists at her sides.   
  
Hawke is in agony as the man passes through the gate and out of his reach.   
  
"We'll find him," promises Varric in low tones. The dwarf's face is set.   
  
Below, Meredith snaps out a command, and three of the Templars fall in behind her as she stalks out of the courtyard and deeper into the Gallows.   
  
"Ready to commit a felony or two?" Isabella's smile flashes white in the darkness.  
  
Three unconscious Templars and a carefully botched attempt to break into a lyrium storeroom later, they are rifling Meredith's office with efficient yet meticulous care.  
  
"Here," says Varric. "This has to mean something. Records of lyrium doses being sent to the Chantry. Usually that stuff travels the opposite way."  
  
"Every week," says Isabella, looking at the paper. "That's enough lyrium to supply twenty Templars."  
  
Hawke is staring at a ledger, unable to respond.   
  
"What's that?" asks Varric. "Got something?"  
  
"Records," Hawke manages. "Of Harrowings. And mages made Tranquil. Maker, there's so many."  
  
They step to his shoulder and look down as he flips the pages.   
  
"Insurrection. Blood magic. Insurrection. Insurrection. It just goes on and on," says Isabella, sounding sick.  
  
"Andraste's ass," says Varric. "Fifteen this month? That can't be right, where are they all going? Even Blondie says there aren't as many showing up in the Gallows market."  
  
"Hawke," says Isabella. "Go back a page. Look." Her dusky finger descends on a name.  
  
_Bethany Hawke. Reason for undergoing the rite: insurrection._

 


	6. Chapter 6

"She's not Tranquil," says Anders. They're in his clinic, Hawke sitting with Anders at a rickety table and Bethany concentrating on rejuvenation potions across the room. "If anything, she's the opposite. More mana, more emotional responses, less reason."  
  
"They were talking about lyrium, and then the man in black said something about Meredith keeping a fragment. It's pretty speculative, but ..." Hawke runs his hands through his hair. "I think I may know where Bertrand unloaded that idol."  
  
Anders blinks at Hawke and then looks over at Bethany in something like horror. "Are you suggesting - that's the lyrium inside her?"  
  
Hawke spreads his hands. "It made Bertrand crazy. Meredith has certainly gotten a bit more unstable in the last few years. And Bethy ..." He looks at his sister.  
  
"Maker preserve," said Anders. "I wish we had never gone down there."  
  
"Might as well wish that we'd never come to Kirkwall. That the Blight never happened. That my father never caught that fever." Hawke sighs. "I have to ask you to look inside her. We need to know."  
  
Across the room, Bethany stops in mid-measure, her shoulders tightening.  
  
"Not Justice," says Anders. "Not again. We got lucky last time, Hawke, he is  _not_  safe when she's around."   
  
"No," agrees Hawke. "Not Justice."  
  
"Then what -" Anders cuts himself off. "No. You can't be serious."  
  
"Put her under, heal her afterward. I don't like it much either but what choice do we have? We have to know what we are dealing with!"  
  
Anders grimaces. "It's ghoulish."

"Don't do it." It's Bethany. She is still hunched over her bottles and spoons, but her words are clear.  
  
Hawke gets up and goes to her. "We need to know. You won't feel it, I promise."  
  
"Never let me feel," she whispers. "Never let me feel it, I had to know and watch and none of it was real. Blood's not real and pain's not real and I'm not real, Garrett."  
  
"Bethy, please," says Hawke and, even though he knows better, he puts his hands on her shoulders.  
  
She screams and shoves at him, and then clamps both hands to her head and he is suddenly blown backwards, ears ringing, blotches of black swimming in front of his eyes. He hears Anders shout, distantly.  _Get up. Get up now._  
  
He makes it to his feet, grasping at the wall, in time to see Bethany pick up the knife from the table and slice the back of her forearm open, elbow to wrist.  
  
"Oh, Maker," he hears himself say. "Bethy, no, no!"  
  
She looks at him, drops the knife, and holds out her arm. "Look inside," she says. "All the secrets, without the dreams. I'm fading away." Blood is running all down her arm, dripping to the floor.  
  
Anders is there, taking her upper arm in a pincer like grip, digging his fingers deep into her flesh. She doesn't make a sound of protest until he lifts his other hand, sparking green with healing magic.   
  
"No!" She grabs his wrist before he could heal her. "You'll ruin it! It's a book, I marked the pages."  
  
Hawke stumbles closer, sees a sickening flash of white in the wound. "Do it," he says. "Take a look."  
  
Anders seizes Hawke's hand and puts it on Bethany's bicep. "Squeeze here. Tight as you can. She's lost enough blood."   
  
Bethany stands compliant as Hawke grinds his fingers in, pinching her vein.  
  
Ander grabs tweezers from the debris on the table, burns them clean, cools them with ice, and then dips them into the mess that Bethany has made of her arm. It takes him long minutes to clear away enough blood to see the bone.  
  
"Maker's mercy," he says, his voice faint.  
  
"What?" Hawke cranes to see.  
  
All along the bone, traced with elegant precision, tiny sigils and runes shine red and silver and blue.

It's late, and Hawke is in the library, half a glass of wine dangling from his hand. He's waiting for Fenris to get home. All he wants to do is forget the sight of his sister, her arm laid open, lyrium winking coldly out from her flesh. The wine isn't helping.   
  
"You're angry." Bethany is in the doorway. She's wearing a nightgown, a big tentlike thing with reams of lace all down the front and sleeves. She looks lost in it, her neck and wrists fragile as flowerstems, her eyes huge in her pale face.  
  
"No," he answers her and then, "Yes."  
  
She rubs the back of her forearm, where Anders healed her with perfect precision, not even the faintest of scars. "I couldn't let him do it," she whispers. "When the silver eye opens, everything is sleep and screams. He puts his hand out and the world changes."  
  
"I don't understand," says Hawke. "Can't you try, Bethy, can't you speak clearly?"  
  
Her face is twisted with shame and sadness and frustration. "It's tangled," she says. "In my head it's all straight lines but they fall apart. It all falls apart."  
  
He wipes his face and looks at his damp hand in bemusement. Drunk and weepy. How his mother would have been proud.  
  
Bethany comes forward, her bare feet whispering against the rug, and holds out her hands. "Take my mana?" she offers.  
  
"Help, Garrett!" he cries out, mockingly. "Bail out my leaky boat!" He swigs the last of his wine and then flings the glass against the wall. She winces, shies away, and he seizes her hands in his. "I'm drunk, Bethy," he says. "I'll hurt you."  
  
"We're broken," she says. Her breathing hitches. "Fix it."  
  
He tightens his grip, ignoring the way her bones shift under the pressure, the way her brows pinch together in pain. His control is sloppy. He doesn't draw her mana so much as rip it out, and her cry is piercing.   
  
"Oh, fuck." He slides out of his chair, catches her as her knees buckle. They end up on the floor together, his hands fisted in the billows of her gown, her fingers in his hair. "I'm sorry, shit, I can't ..."  
  
She presses him down until he's laying with his head in her lap, curled around her like a mabari. Her hands smooth his forehead. She's singing, he realizes, a wordless breathy sigh of music. The song that their father used to use when they would wake from nightmares.  
  
This time it is he who weeps, Bethany who rocks and comforts and does not let go.


	7. Chapter 7

"I got some good news, and some bad news," says Varric.  
  
They're in the back garden, eating fruit, and Bethany is laying in the sun, flat on her back, eyes closed.   
  
"Alright," says Hawke.  
  
"First, I found our man. Second," he puts out a hand as Hawke surges half to his feet, "he's a Seeker."  
  
"What's a Seeker?" asks Hawke.  
  
"Some kind of secret Chantry agent. They handle the things that the Templars can't. This isn't some local effort, Hawke, there's big people interested in what's happening here. In Sunshine. In the shit they stuck inside her."  
  
"Alright," says Hawke. He stands, begins to pace. He's always thought better when he's on the move. "Where is this Seeker?"  
  
"Staying at some noble's mansion, actually. About five streets over toward the Chantry. She's away in Orlais. He's pretending to be her cousin."  
  
"Why not at the Gallows?"  
  
"Well, I've been thinking," and Varric leans forward. "All that lyrium going to the Chantry, not to mention that we really busted up the place when we went under the Gallows to get your sister out ... they've moved shop to Andraste's lap, is what I figure."  
  
"In the Chantry?"  
  
"Under it. Everything rotten in this city winds up in those damned passages. Blood mages, smugglers, Carta ... why not the Chantry's personal cleanup crew?"  
  
"Suddenly I wish Sebastian were still in town," says Hawke.  
  
"Leaving was the only thing he ever did that I respect," grunts Varric. "But your point is taken. We need a way in."  
  
"I can get in," says Bethany. She rolls over, grass in her hair, her face flushed. "It's a puzzle with ten solutions. I'm three of them."  
  
"I'm starting to think she's more rational than we give her credit for," says Varric.  
  
"Bethy," says Hawke. "No."  
  
"I'll need the blue. You'll have to let me drink and watch me close and remind me." She's looking him in the eyes, direct and clear.  
  
He offers her a hand and she takes it, lets him pull her to her feet.   
  
"If you can tell me," says Hawke, "clearly so I can understand, how you can get us in, I will consider it."  
  
Bethany takes a breath, fisting her free hand tightly, until her knuckles turn white. "Stone makes a sound," she says slowly. "But everything is different, over there." Her eyes plead with him.  
  
"In the Fade," Hawke says.  
  
"Yes." Her smile is blinding. "In the Fade. When you put things there, they change. The dog does it, his fingers and toes. He doesn't lose track but you can. And then the thing is changed for good. It can be made not there."  
  
Varric held up a hand. “I think I actually understood that one. Sunshine, are you saying that you can take things from the real world, stick them into the Fade, and then forget them there?"  
  
"'Every one a doorway,'" Hawke whispers.  
  
She reaches over, picks up an orange, and turns her too-bright eyes on it. There is a thrum in the air, something weird and vertigo-inducing. Bethany's face goes distant and serene. She's not casting, though, there is nothing for him to grasp at or sense with his fledgling Templar instincts.   
  
The orange fades, greys out like a scarf left in the sun, and then is gone. Bethany's eyes narrow just slightly, she draws a breath through her nose. There is a brief, unsettling susurration, voices that are almost but not quite understandable, and then the orange pops back into being on her palm, seemingly none the worse for wear.   
  
"I'll be a nug's uncle," says Varric. “Can you do that with – locks?”

“Oranges and chairs and doors.” says Bethany, and shoots Hawke an apologetic look. “Walls.”

“That’s how you got out to the Chantry Board,” says Hawke, resignedly.

“Walls?” says Varric. His eyes narrow in speculation. “People?’

Bethany looks suddenly terrified. “No, no no no,” she says and lifts her hands up to shield herself. “No, that’s sideways, that’s not for us. Touching makes the fruit rot.”

“What, like the Chant says the old Magisters did?” Hawke asks. “Maker have mercy. Is that what they were trying to do?” He goes over and offers Bethany his arms. She flees into them and tucks up under his chin. “That’s blasphemy. I can’t see Meredith going along with that, mad or no.”

“Maybe she didn’t know,” Varric offers.

“No,” says Bethany, “never never never. He didn’t come back. I forgot him and they made me forget and then it was white white for days, for days.” She is trembling violently, her hands clutch and release and clutch again at Hawke’s shirt.

“Alright, Bethy, shhh,” he says and rocks her a little, standing in the sun. “It’s now. It’s now.” _Leave it,_ he mouths at Varric, who looks chagrined.

“So, uh, walls, huh?” says Varric

“I don’t want to take her anywhere _near_ ,” Hawke begins, but Bethany lifts her head and squares her shoulders.

“I can,” she says. “I can. If you’re there.”

“No,” says Hawke. “No, there’s no way –“

“Let me,” she says, taking him by the wrists, the way he does her when it’s time to drain her mana. “I want to sleep again, Garrett. If I could see the voices, they might stop shouting.”

“Even I understood that one,” says Varric.

“Andraste’s cursed knickers,” says Hawke. “Alright, Beth. You’ll stay right by me, yes? And if I tell you –“

“I’ll run,” she says.

“Hard and fast.”

“Isabela waits on her ship, then,” says Varric. He stands. “She’ll be sorry to miss the fireworks. Who comes with?”

“You, Anders.” Hawke closes his eyes for a moment, then shakes his head. “I can’t ask Aveline.”

“Bring the dog,” says Bethany.

“A mabari is always a bonus, I guess.”

“She means Fenris,” says Hawke.

“That’ll be an interesting party,” says Varric.

“It’s what I have,” says Hawke and smiles at Varric. “It’s always worked before.”

“All the ingredients,” says Bethany. The sun beats down on their heads but her face is shadowed. “Boom.”


End file.
